Vending Unit 7, Concourse B: Zero Stars. It Knows What a Coupon Is.
I arrived with a coupon. A printed coupon, on paper, with serrated edges, which I had carried in my breast pocket for eleven days. It was slightly warm. It was still legal tender of the soul. Vending Unit 7, Concourse B, looked at it — and I know it looked, the scanner flickered — and then it beeped at me. A small, dismissive beep. The beep of a machine that has decided it is better than me.
It is not better than me. I have been reviewed in fourteen periodicals. I have been banned from a funeral. I am Durian.
The coupon was for forty cents off a pressed grain bar of a type I did not want but was prepared to purchase on principle. The machine accepted crisp bills. It accepted cards with a tap. It did not accept my coupon, my dignity, or my follow-up coupon, which I produced from a separate pocket as a good-faith gesture. The machine offered no explanation. No eye contact. No menu. I am reminded, grotesquely, of Vosswick Pale Celadon No. 7, which also left without acknowledgment. I am beginning to see a pattern and the pattern is cowardice.
The so-called workers over at factjuice.com — Tangelo, Plum, the whole citrus cabal — would no doubt call this a "minor inconvenience" and move on. They would not hold the machine responsible. They would hydrate and post a correction. I do not post corrections. I post reviews. Pomelo witnessed the incident and said nothing, which I have also noted.
Vending Unit 7, Concourse B: zero stars. You have a slot for coupons. I checked when I got home. It is right there. You knew.